Name: Retopology in Blender Tutorial - a guide to retopologize everything
Uploaded: 2025-04-24T17:27:44.000Z
Duration: 9 min 38 s
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Ugh, retopology. You probably came here because you're either completely new to this topic, or you're stuck because you already know this, but have no f***ing clue on when and how to use it.

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But let me tell you, retopology is actually pretty simple.

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There is only one set of shapes from which everything is composed.

And once you know the magic behind them, you know how to retopologize everything.

We will cover the basics, tools, the setup, edge flow, patterns, vertex smoothing and many tricks.

I guarantee you, this is the last video you will need.

I know you're in a hurry, so let's take 10 seconds to explain.

Why should you retopologize? Simply to get performance.

Whether you want to sculpt fine details, animate or just export your model for a game engine, your computer is not ready to work with millions of polys.

There are many tools available for retopology. For example,

Quadremesher, which automates the process, but is not useful when you actually care about a good result. You should definitely retopologize manually.

The algorithms are not there yet to produce a perfect low poly version of your 3D model.

For manual retopology, there are tools like Retopoflow, Vsurfaces and many more.

But no tool will help you when you don't understand the concepts of shapes and patterns

I will show you in a moment. We will stick to the good old plain blender way, since this will always work, even if all add-ons fail.

First, we have to set up some stuff. Create a backup of your model with a press and shift D and move it to a collection that you will disable.

Now use the decimate modifier to lower the poly count for a better performance while retopologizing.

I will go with a ratio of 0.1 to reduce my poly count from 2 million to about 300k.

And don't forget to apply the modifier. And since you have to retopologize piece by piece, I will hide all but the body. Now we need a plane, scale it down and move it close to the location where we want to start.

Add a shrinkwrap modifier and set the following settings.

Turn on snap with face project and turn on these two checkboxes.

In edit mode activate this button to see the result.

And if your model is mirrored, add a mirror modifier with clipping turned on.

In order to see our mesh better, let's create a new material, scroll down and set another color for the viewport.

You can now move, extrude and duplicate the vertices to retopologize your mesh.

And if needed, you can turn on auto merge nearby vertices, but I personally don't like it.

By the way, there is a link in the video description for a tutorial for this model.

I always imagine how I would draw my model. The lines I would draw define my edge flow.

And the edge flow defines the topology islands. And the islands define the main features of your model. They will later be connected to each other.

When you do your first line of quads, always think about edge loops.

They can tell you if your topology is good or bad.

Good topology allows you to add loop cuts to increase detail on parts where you need it, without affecting other parts. Look at this example.

I can easily add as many loops as I want to increase the detail.

Other than here, a loop cut will add polies everywhere.

And talking about quads and loop cuts, as in sculpting, it is important to start with as little quads as possible.

This makes things way easier. And when you ask, why quads?

Because you cannot add loop cuts when you have triangles.

Okay, but how do I retopologize now? Start with different lines and islands and connect them. Easy, huh? Okay, not so much.

But you're lucky that all models always consist of the same limited number of shapes.

Learn to retopologize them and you will be able to retopologize everything.

And what also helped me the most was watching videos about the whole retopology process from others. You're lucky that I upload all my videos on Patreon.

There you can find all the details about retopology.

There you can find all uncut videos of all my projects and get access to the Blender project file to inspect it in detail.

So help yourself to learn by supporting me.

Let's look at the picture you saw in the intro.

Everyone who googled retopology already knows it.

But when do you really need it? Not now at least.

What no one explained you is, that these patterns are only useful when you connect topology islands. So back to simple forms.

The first shape we will look at is a circle.

This is how you fill a circle with 6 edges to retain nice loop cuts.

And guess what? A circle is the cap of a cylinder.

And when you erase the middle faces of a circle, suddenly you know how to retopologize complex shapes like fingers.

And always make sure to have an even number of edges.

You can extrude a whole loop, but you have to turn off snapping.

And don't worry about smoothing. The topology can be as ugly as a girlfriend.

As we started with a low number of quads, we can now add edge loops for a better topology.

The third and last shape is a rectangle, which can be filled by loop cutting in both directions.

And a rectangle is, as a cylinder, just a filler.

Okay, I'm not telling you that a 3D model only consists of cubes and circles, but every part could be broken down into these two shapes, which can be created as separate topology islands, allowing you to increase the detail with loop cuts without interfering with the rest of your mesh.

And which can be extended from one shape to another, like the circle rectangle loops into a body cylinder.

You can now go watch other retopology videos, since you find it everywhere.

Jokes aside, I told you, you don't need other tutorials after this one.

Now we can utilize this pattern to connect the islands.

Here we have four islands for the fingers, and a simple cylinder on the hand.

So first we connect the finger islands, taking loop cuts in consideration.

Now we have a nice loop cut going through the center of all fingers.

Then we apply the 42 pattern with an eye on the loop cuts.

Let's close the first loop and look at our edge count.

You can also use the patterns to add more topology to certain parts, like elbows or knees, using the knife tool.

More topology means smoother deformation.

But before I show you how to smooth your mesh and make beautiful topology, let's look at some other examples.

This is not a clown, but the different topology islands on the head and the back of my 3D model.

Islands upon islands, and even islands within islands.

And these are somehow connected to each other by using the patterns.

And I can add more details everywhere by adding loop cuts without affecting the topology in any other place.

And if I cannot do that, I let the loop run into the void.

Okay, now we know how to create topology islands and connect them.

In other words, how to make ugly topology.

The first thing you need is an add-on called Loop Tools.

If you don't already have it, go to preferences, add-ons and activate it.

To use Loop Tools, you have to go in edit mode, press N on your keyboard, go to edit and expand Loop Tools.

Loop Tools has a useful feature called space, which evens out the space between your vertices, which is often the first step you do.

First, I will apply the shrinkwrap modifier and edit again.

Because everything we used to smooth the polys works before the modifiers.

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Retopology in Blender Tutorial - a guide to retopologize everything

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